MetaFilter has long had one unbreakable rule: Thou shalt not self-link. Thou mayest e-mail thy link to thine fellow MeFites, but never, never must thou posteth said link to the front page of MetaFilter.

This rule kept a lot of crappy Web hobbyist sites from being posted to MetaFilter, I’m sure. But it also meant that MeFites who made something legitimately post-worthy often wouldn’t get their stuff linked on the site until it had already become popular somewhere else. So Matt Haughey created MeFi Projects, where members could pimp their own stuff to their hearts’ content. Other members could vote for the stuff they liked best, and post it to MeFi if they wanted.